Kimi Räikkönen ended his Formula 1 career at the end of 2021 after 19 seasons, 350 Grands Prix, 21 wins and 103 podiums. The world of motorsport is so used to the Finnish driver that it was even difficult to imagine the championship without him. But it’s already the second season since Kimi, who mentioned in an interview that he was only glad that this period of his life was finally over, has not performed in F1. Let’s see what the racer does and where Kimi Räikkönen is now.
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NASCAR
Kimi Räikkönen made his debut in NASCAR back in 2011. And in 2022, the NASCAR Trackhouse Racing team showed the car’s livery on which the driver would have raced in the NASCAR Cup Series championship at the Watkins Glen stage in August. The former Formula 1 driver said the following statement about this news:
“After my debut in 2011, I have repeatedly said that I enjoyed racing in NASCAR. These are old-school races, and modern motorsport’s general stages are unlike anything else. The atmosphere there is relaxed. And it’s also great that the new cars are more like GT and equipped with a sequential gearbox. Trackhouse Racing hoped that I would run two or three races this year, but in the end, we settled on one.”
Räikkönen performed very well in the race. However, he encountered an unfortunate incident involving multiple cars at the onset of the third leg. Initially, Kimi maintained a position in the Top 10 during a significant portion of the second segment. Then after the pit stop, he lost several places but managed to regain some ground following the pit stops of the leading drivers. Unfortunately for the Finn, his race ended prematurely on lap 46 due to an off-track excursion resulting in a collision with the barrier.